Invest in clean energy now more than ever

Sunday

May 3, 2020 at 2:00 AM

Presidents used to brag about low gas prices even if they had nothing to do with them. So when the price at the pump dropped below $2 a gallon for regular, a bonus for hard-working, cash-strapped Americans, you might think that President Trump would take credit.

Instead, he works against us, spending millions on filling the national oil reserve to overflowing, and awkwardly trying to intervene in the dispute between two major international oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The fossil fuel industry already receives billions in subsidies and the administration is using the cover of the COVID-19 crisis to help some more, sometimes in the form of financial aid, sometimes in the form of relaxing regulations.

This has emboldened those who have always been opposed to any attempt to convert to alternative energy sources. We already are hearing that now is not the time to invest in that technology, that we instead should be removing legal and other obstacles to pipelines and making sure that the supply of gas and oil continues to flow.

The usual suspects making their usual arguments have it backwards even more than usual this time.

At a time when every day we see the dangers of not listening to science showing up in the form of unprecedented illness and death, both predicted long in advance and both made worse by a resistance to fact and logic, we should not ignore a similar lesson when it comes to the planet.

In fact, the planet itself is the best teacher these days.

Think back before the pandemic and recall those warnings that we might already have passed beyond the point where we could do something meaningful to slow global warming and clean up pollution. At the time, no one was talking about global economic stagnation because nobody ever thought it would happen. But now it has and one direct, observable and understandable effect is a healthier environment, cleaner air, clear proof that if we can wean ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels, we really can make a difference that we can see.

And we are seeing it in the form of air cleaner than anybody can remember in such polluted places as Delhi, Mumbai and Seoul, with recent calculations finding that the places with the historically highest levels of pollution have seen the most substantial drops.

Stop using so much fossil fuel and the result is not theoretical at some time in the future, it is real today.

And were this just a matter of returning to normal, it would be hard to argue in favor of investment in alternative energy sources at a time when money is scarce. But the president, his powerful donors in the fossil fuel industry and his friends in Saudi Arabia and Russia are not about to do it on their own. They want billions of our tax dollars.

So which makes more sense? Spending billions to help wealthy companies and nations revive pollution or spending billions to help move our energy industry toward alternatives, creating millions of new jobs?

The answer is as clear as the air in Mumbai these days.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.